


Ocean

by celtic7irish



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Friendship, Gen, Post-Iron Man 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celtic7irish/pseuds/celtic7irish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mansion in ruins, Tony is left to pick up what little remains of his life in Malibu.  Lucky for him, he's not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ocean

Tony sat on the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean.  Behind him lay the ruins of his Malibu mansion, a crumbling, smoldering ruin.  His bots were loaded onto the trailer, just waiting for him to get in the truck and leave, to take them back to New York where he could repair them. 

 

With a quiet sigh, he tipped the bottle back and took another swig of beer.  He grimaced at the taste.  High quality, this was not.  Still, he wasn’t drinking it for the taste, and he took another swallow before tossing the bottle over the cliff’s edge, watching idly as it tumbled down to the ocean, smashing on the rocks below.  Above him, the wind picked up speed, and the heavy scent of an approaching storm filled the air.

 

“Gimme a break,” he muttered, reaching for another beer and twisting off the cap.  He paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth at the quiet scuffling noise behind him.  Defiantly taking another sip of the crappy beer, he pointedly ignored the person behind him. It was probably another damn reporter, hoping to get an exclusive insider look into Tony’s most recent series of fuck ups.  Sharks and vultures, the whole freaking lot of them.

 

“So…you’re alive,” a familiar soft-spoken voice said.  Tony stiffened in surprise, then very carefully set his bottle down beside him before turning to take in the rumpled man behind him  “That’s good,” Bruce added, giving Tony a small smile.  “I was starting to worry.”

 

Tony grunted.  “Yep, alive and kicking,” he answered.  “Much to everybody’s disappointment, I’m sure.”

 

“I’m sure,” Bruce agree wryly, settling himself next to Tony with a quiet sigh, his feet dangling over the cliff’s ledge as he looked out over the ocean.  “You know,” he said after a moment, “I’ve seen all four oceans.  Well, five, technically,” he amended.

 

“Huh,” Tony commented after thinking about it for a moment.   “So have I…I think.  Wasn’t really paying attention,” he admitted with a rueful grin.  “Business trips.”  From back when he was selling weapons to the highest bidder, but he wasn’t about to mention that.  “Which one was your favorite?”

 

Bruce tipped his head back to look up at the sky while he considered the question.  “The Indian, I think,” he murmured finally.  “Three years.  It’s the longest I’ve ever stayed in one place since the incident.”

 

Tony winced; if Bruce was talking about the day the Hulk first appeared of his own volition, it wasn’t out of sentimentality.  He was trying to coax Tony to do the same.  The billionaire had been to enough psychiatrists to know their tricks.

 

Still, he supposed that maybe talking to the other man wouldn’t be much of a hardship.  After all, of all the Avengers, the shy, awkward nuclear physicist was the only one who had come to find him after the whole Mandarin-Killian fiasco.  Steve was in DC doing who knew what.  He and Romanov were still working for SHIELD as far as he knew.  Barton, too, probably, if the psych department had released him for duty.  Thor was….wherever he was.  Asgard, probably.

 

He realized that he’d been lost in thought for just a little too long; Bruce was watching him now, his expression mildly amused.  “That wasn’t meant to trick you,” he said, and Tony found his lips twitching upwards into an approximation of a smile.  Bruce was probably the only man in the world who could follow his line of thinking without him ever saying a word.

 

“Sorry,” he sighed, his right hand fiddling idly with the neck of the bottle he’d been drinking from moments ago.  “It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”  Then he winced, remember who he was talking to.  Compared to the Hulk and Ross and Blonsky, the Mandarin and Killian weren’t anything more than annoying little flies.  He was just exhausted, that was all.  And he still had to look at the Extremis program.  He’d managed to stabilize Pepper, but he needed to find a cure for her; she didn’t want to have superpowers, and Tony couldn’t really blame her.

 

Bruce was looking back towards the ruins of what had once been Tony’s beautiful Malibu home.  Now there was nothing there but twisted bits of metal and shattered glass flung out among the rocks.  “Are they okay?” the other man asked, and Tony glanced over at him, frowning in confusion.  “Ah, the…robots.  They’re AI’s, right?  Like JARVIS?”  As he did with everything, Bruce had taken JARVIS in stride, only pausing briefly before returning the AI’s greeting and making polite small talk.  JARVIS had taken a shine to the mild-mannered scientist, and Tony suspected that it had been the AI who had told Bruce where to find him.

 

He swallowed hard, but nodded.  “Yeah, they’ll…they’ll be fine,” he said carefully.  “Their cores are okay, and JARVIS still has their most recent backup copy, so once I get them repaired, they’ll be fine.”  Of course, there was always the risk that something might’ve happened to corrupt JARVIS’s backups, and he’d have to make damn sure that their programming didn’t contain any viruses or anything from their time on the ocean floor.

 

“Good,” Bruce nodded decisively.  “That’s good.”  Tony gave a vague hum of agreement.  With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet, brushing himself off.  Beside him, Bruce waited a moment longer before doing the same, and the two men headed back towards he ruins. 

 

Tony glanced over at his companion.  “Where’s your ride?” he asked.

 

Bruce smiled self-consciously. “Ah, I took one of your cars,” he admitted.  “It’s down the road a ways.”  Which meant that the other man had hiked up the cliff, more or less.  Tony grunted; it wasn’t like one his sport cars would have made it up the long drive, anyhow.  There were still boulders and trees and bits of the mansion strewn across the pavement.  Tony had brought the truck because it was the only vehicle that could handle a bit of off-road driving, and it would haul the trailer with the bots well enough.

 

When they reached the truck, Tony pulled the keys out of his pocket and gestured for Bruce to climb into the passenger’s side, which the other man did with a last look at the bots, one hand running carefully over a mostly intact strut.

 

Bruce waited until they were on the road again, the remains of the mansion nearly out of view, before he spoke up.  “Will you rebuild it?” he asked.  Tony didn’t need him to clarify.

 

The billionaire shook his head.  “Nah,” he said.  “I doubt it. I’m not overly fond of large bodies of water, anyhow.”  That much, at least, was true, though he’d probably miss the beach.  Then he grinned cockily over at his companion.  “Besides, I want to see what you’ve been up to while I was away.”  He had been just as surprised as Bruce when the other man had agreed to stay in Stark Tower, even after Tony returned to Malibu.  He had expected Bruce to disappear again, and was glad he hadn’t.

 

Bruce shrugged and turned to look out the window, uncomfortable now.  “Yeah, well, I couldn’t pass up all those shiny toys you have,” he admitted.  Tony chuckled, a bit of tension leaving his shoulders as he glanced in the rearview mirrors at the bots.  They were okay.  And eventually, he would be, too.

 

Tony took a deep breath, then turned towards New York.


End file.
